


The Calling Card

by wede_fic (frahulettaes)



Category: Real Person Fiction, The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-08
Updated: 2009-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:09:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24067891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frahulettaes/pseuds/wede_fic
Summary: author: wede-ficrating: PG-13characters: David Ducovney/Mitch Pileggi, pre-slashsummary: Mssr. Duchovney has a visitor.An Easter egg for  Morgan's Free Rangers: A Tale of Courage and Daring in the Tayasha Badlands2009 SPN Big Bang.https://fanlore.org/wiki/Morgan%27s_Free_Rangers
Relationships: David Duchovny/Mitch Pileggi





	1. Chapter 1

“Good morning, Sir.” Hopkins gently opens the heavy velvet curtain, lets the sun's rays into the blessed darkness of his sanctum somnambulate. He groans, listens to the trickle of liquid pouring, pulls the pillow closer to his cheek. 

“Hopkins, it's still dark.” He grumbles.

He hears the smile in Hopkins voice. “Your Mother will be very disappointed to hear that her hall clock is wrong, Sir. Again, Sir.” 

He rolls to the cool side of the bed. “Do not mock me, Hopkins.” 

“Sir, you wound me. The very thought would never enter my head.” Hopkins steps closer and David can hear the faintest click of porcelain touching marble. The scent of kappii wafts across the pillows and he rolls toward it like a lover denied too long. 

The first sip is heaven, and he cups the wide porcelain bowl in both hands. It's perfect; dark, sweet with brown Barbados sugar and heavy cream. He sighs blissfully.

“You are forgiven, Hopkins. For now and eternity.” David reaches for the paper with one hand and lays it across the linen, as Hopkins opens the remaining drapes. 

“My priest will be so relieved, Sir. Will you walk out today, Sir?” Hopkins lays a peking plate on his side table covered with a sterling bell, and spreads a linen napkin over David's lap. He lifts the silver bell off the plate and takes last night's underclothes piled on the chair away to the laundry basket. 

David's engrossed in the gossip column and so answers after a moment, distractedly. 

“Mmhmm, yes.” He sips kappii and turns one perfectly ironed page. 

“Dove grey, Sir? With the rosewood doublet, don't you agree, Sir?” Hopkins voice gets fainter as he walks into the adjoining dressing room. 

David looks up, eyes focused on the middle distance, lips pursed. He considers. 

“Yes. And Hopkins?” David says.

“Yes, Sir?” Hopkins answers from deep in the dressing room.

“The ruby silk tie, I think. Don't you?” He drinks down the rest of the kappii and sets the bowl down.

“Oh, yes Sir. With the jet pin your father gave you.” Hopkins says as he reappears, arms filled with white linen and soft gray cheviot. 

“Perfect, Hopkins.” David grins and pours hot water into the huge porcelain bowl.

“You are too kind, Sir. Oh and Sir? I nearly forgot. You had a gentleman caller this morning. I've left his card on your tray. Very distinguished. Not your usual caller, if I may say so. “ Hopkins chatters as he lays each piece of clothing carefully over the wood butler. 

David turns, hands and face still wet and looks wide eyed at his valet. 

“Shall I shave you now, Sir?” Hopkins uses the last of the hot water to soak a linen towel. He ignores David's stare, busies himself sharpening his shaving blade on the strop and failing miserably to hide his smile. 

David's face turns grave. “Hopkins.” He says, a gravelly impersonation of his father's best growl. 

“Sir?” Hopkins says, laying the blade on the side table. He takes the back of the heart shaped Chippendale and sets it firmly before the long dressing mirror and pats the seat. 

David puts hands to waist, puffs his chest and tries to look threatening. “Hopkins!”

Hopkins stops stirring the shaving brush over the soap and looks up, face a mask of feigned innocence.

“Sir?” He says. “Will you seat yourself Sir? Before the water cools, Sir?” He's as close to laughter as David has ever seen him. And only David would ever know and only from years of watching that inscrutable face.

David watches the shifting of humor and affection flow across Hopkins face and can't hold his reserve any longer. He laughs and shakes his head ruefully. 

“I don't deserve you, Hopkins. Where's that damned card? Tell me everything.” He lifts a linen towel from the table and dries his hands. Hopkins finishes lathering his brush and sets the soap and cup on the table. 

“The card is next the eggs I assume you will not eat. Now sit, Sir and all will be revealed.” Hopkins picks up the knife and a small napkin and stands behind the chair, waiting. 

“I do love you Hopkins, you know that don't you?” David says, card in hand as he sits. 

“I never doubted it for a second, Sir.” He ties a length of calico over David's chest and tucks the ends behind his neck and begins to tell of the morning's meetings. 

~*~

He's still wearing his walking suit, sitting at his writing table, when Hopkins knocks on the door.

“Come in, Hopkins.” David calls, still writing.

The door opens and Hopkins' soft tread is barely noticeable on the Ottoman carpet as he approaches.

“There's a gentleman caller asking to see you, Sir. This morning's Mister M. Pileggi, Sir. Shall I show him to the drawing room?” 

David stands and turns to the mirror, adjusts his artfully styled cravat, dusts non-existent dust from the arm of his coat. 

“Yes. And Hopkins?” He straightens one sleeve, adjusts the ruffled cuff.

“Sir?” Hopkins stands, weight shifted slightly back, about to turn.

“Thank you.” David says, catches his friend's eye in the long polished mirror and smiles.

Hopkins only response is the tiniest of smiles in return.

“Of course, Sir.”  
~*~

“Mister M. Pileggi.” Hopkins stands at the door as David passes through, his smile pasted on his face. He makes his stop as usual behind the tall winged Hugenot chair, one hand artfully placed. 

Pileggi is standing in the alcove window framed by the immaculate expanse of field and flowers of the Duchovny Estate. He's as tall as David, suit elegant but understated, yellow calfskin gloves in one hand. He's not at all what David expected. He is distinguished, just as Hopkins said, but he's rougher around the edges. David knows the look of a man who's been to the west. That alone, sends a thrill down David's back. 

He steps forward, hand extended. Hopkins makes a little cough, but David ignores it. He's far older than most cuilonitoton of his set, old enough to make his own decisions. And his own mistakes.

“Mister Pileggi.” He says, and makes a little gasp when Pileggi's wide rough palm clasps his hand. 

Pileggi's look is inscrutable. “Mister Duchovny.” He rumbles in return, hand still firmly holding David's. David sees the movement when it starts, can't believe it's happening when it does an lets his surprise show when Pileggi lifts his hand, turns it and places a soft kiss to the inside of his wrist.

David swallows. Takes a moment to find his voice, his wrist tingling from the soft press of lips. Clears his throat. 

“Hopkins.” He says as firmly as he can. His eyes stay on Pileggi's face as he speaks.

Hopkins makes a tiny sound of assent.

“That will be all.” He whispers. 

“As you wish, Sir.” Hopkins says and David can just hear the soft snick of the brass latch click shut.


	2. Pileggi's Haberdashery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> author: wede-fic   
> rating: PG-13  
> characters:David Ducovney/Mitch Pileggi,  
> summary: Pileggi is a man who loves his wife. Despite all of his wife's obsessions.

Twice weekly the Vinland to Tayasha stage went through Kosse Township. Without fail, rain or shine, even during Ramadan, though Pileggi had a few Oweneer drivers for that month. He was, after all, a fair man even if he wasn't a religious one. Living at the cross roads of so many countries did that to a person. Or so he told himself.

His wife, however, was a whole different matter. David was pious. Devoted. Some might say, orthodox.

Round about the third week of the month the V&T stage carried mail and parcels from way up north where the tall ships brought goods from Europe to the new world. By the end of the second week of the month, David invariable became fidgety. Indecisive and fussy. No cravat was right. No wine satisfied. Nothing Pileggi did worked and in their ten odd years of marriage, he'd learned to let his wife be.

He'd taken to paying the townships young'uns to keep watch, a penny's worth of sweets to those who brought back news of the stage first. But only under the admonition that no one get hurt. No scouting. No sabotage. Because he knew, as soon as that cloud of dust was sited on the east Kosse Pass road, his life would return to normal.

But only after that months' fashions had been scoured. Each gazette from France studied at length. Each letter from abroad read and savored. His wife, Pileggi sighed tiredly, was a slave to fashion.

He watched as David supervised the removal of the crates of new fabrics. Smiled when the small leather valise of stick pins and cufflinks was discovered with his name elegantly scrolled in the leather tag and the slow wide eyed stare that turned on him moments after, surprised delight followed rapidly by smoldering fire.

That night, after a sumptuous dinner, in their room at Le Sur Montaigne, he relished removing a new elegant emerald pin from the silky satin cravat. Felt his collar close around his neck as David's sloe eyed stare made him flush hot and needy. 

He took his time, slipping pearl buttons through fine lawn linen and soft leather thongs through worsted wool. Pileggi was a connoisseur. Even now, with David shaken and blushing, he made himself slow, brushing his wife's shirt open, ghosting soft fingers slowly over the downy hair on his chest.

After, the fire banked, a fine sherry and two glasses nearly empty on the nightstand, he smiled and stroked his hand over silky skin.

Pileggi was a man who loved his wife.

Orthodoxy and all.


End file.
